New York City mayoral hopeful Andrew Yang’s support has plummeted among Democratic voters, while Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams holds a narrow lead in the race, a new poll released Monday found.
Adams garnered the support of 18 percent of primary voters in the WPIX 11/Emerson College survey — while Yang was in a second-place tie with scandal-rocked city Comptroller Scott Stringer, with each getting the backing of 15 percent of likely Democratic voters.
Yang’s support dropped in half from a WPIX 11/Emerson survey in March, when he was favored by 32 percent of respondents.
In a surprise, Stringer’s support more than doubled from 6 percent in March to 15 percent now — despite a former campaign volunteer from a prior 2001 race accusing him of sexual misconduct. Stringer denied the charges.
Many elected officials and the Working Families Party pulled their endorsements after Jean Kim claimed Stringer groped and harassed her.
But a majority of voters — 56 percent — said they either had not heard enough about the accusations (28 percent) or deemed them not credible (28 percent). Another 27 percent of respondents said they were unsure about Kim’s claims while only 18 percent said they were credible.
Other labor unions — including the powerful United Federation of Teachers and Teamsters Local 237 — have stood by Stringer.
Meanwhile the biggest winner in the poll was “none of the above,” with the number of Democratic voters who are on the fence jumping from 17 percent in March to 23 percent.
Adam’s support was nearly identical from the March survey, when 19 percent of respondents said they were in his corner.
Former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia had the backing of 8 percent of Democrats, up from 5 percent in March.
Not-profit executive Dianne Morales garnered 6 percent support, followed by former Obama official Shaun Donovan with 5 percent, retired Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and former City Hall legal counsel Maya Wiley with 4 percent backing each and Art Chang at 2 percent.
The large number of undecided voters means there’s still time for a candidate to catch fire — or crash.
Recent polls have shown Yang or Adams alternatively in the lead or running second.
Based on the current results, the text survey crunched the numbers to determine who would win the contest with ranked choice voting, which kicks in if no candidate captures 50 percent of the vote in the primary
Under the current findings, it would take 10 rounds to choose a winner — with Adams prevailing over Yang 53 percent to 47 percent.
The poll also asked voters about their issues of concern.
Of those listed, 19 percent said addressing the homeless should be the first priority of the next mayor followed by 15 percent who identified housing — both rising since the March poll.
Dealing with the coronavirus dropped from the top issue at 18 percent in March down to 9 percent.
Other top issues reported were jobs at 12 percent, healthcare at 11 percent, education and schools at 10 percent and police reform at 9 percent.
The survey did not list crime as one of the open-ended topics, despite a rise in gun shootings. Eleven percent of voters wrote in “something else” as their top concern — many citing crime.
But it did ask about transit crime, with 79 percent of respondents saying they were concerned about a family member being a victim of an attack on the rails amid a spate of high-profile assaults.
The poll found that a majority of all voters — 53 percent — report having a very positive or somewhat positive view of the NYPD. Forty percent of respondents hold a negative view, and 7 percent were unsure.
The results varied by race — 61 percent of both white voters and Hispanic voters had a positive view of the NYPD compared to only 33 percent of black voters.
Two-thirds of older votes over 65 viewed the police favorably, compared to just 36 percent of younger voters age 18 to 29.
Meanwhile 70 percent of voters said they support maintaining or increasing the NYPD’s budget, compared to 30 percent who said it should be cut.
The PIX 11/Emerson College cell phone text and online panel poll was conducted May 13-15. The sample consisted of 1,013 registered city registered voters, and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points regarding questions on the issues.
The survey queried 631 Democrats about the mayoral primary. The results have a plus or minus 3.8 percentage point margin of error.
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